The Toy Jeep

The Toy Jeep

I just had an existential moment that I had to write down and share if, by chance, anyone reads it.  I was out in the garage trying to figure out how I want to build some 'rustic' wood toys for my grand kids.  I found a small piece of wood I thought I could use for the tires and  put it on the work bench to drill out the circles.   It took a while to drill out the first wheel, "man, this is hard wood." When I looked closer I realized it was a piece of wood I had saved from Andy's parents sofa.  So far, no real big deal I suppose but suddenly I flashed back to the first time I ever saw that furniture in the den of Jim and Bonnie Arnold in 1968.  It wasn't new then but I just thought of how long this wood has paralleled my life .  I remember one time  Bonnie gave  me 'a look' when I put a glass down on the end table with out a coaster or anything.  I got the message real quick!  Or Papa Jim,  asleep in his chair, snoring away with all kinds of noise, people and activity going on around him.  It only took a moment or two, going in rewind , to review several such snapshots:  I was the only Colts fan , watching the Super Bowl with a whole household of Joe Namath fans.....(especially Andy's mom.,    asking my future father in law for permission to marry Andy (I was sitting on the sofa but really squirming!.......Jim was gracious and said yes)  Enough.   I just flashed across the years and stopped  briefly , almost in a blur .  The really neat part was the brief visual of one of the gand kids picking up this little toy and banging it on the loudest thing available (as Ella is fond of doing )or worse yet pouring a whole cup of water on it or pushing it through the mud in the back yard (a noble thought for a Jeep)   "Sorry Jim and Bonnie!"

    I saw the look on Bonnie's face but this time, for a great grand child, it turned into a smile.

I just put this down to remember it;  I'll spend more time latter......must get back to the Jeep'

Tom

I reread the story that I posted this past weekend and I didn't even understand it.  I got lost trying to keep clear on exactly what was happening especially at the very end.  It was a story I started years ago and left unfinished but now it's back in the shop for more work .  I guess my main thought is that I discovered a new appreciation for writers in working on this little story.  It's hard.  

Maybe The Mysterious Mr. H  will be back, maybe not.  I need some help in correcting it.  SAMANTHA  if you're listening...........help

tom hudgens

Saturday, November 29, 2008

 

R. Tom Hudgens

The Toy Jeep

I just had an existential moment that I had to write down and share if, by chance, anyone reads it.  I was out in the garage trying to figure out how I want to build some 'rustic' wood toys for my grandkids.  I found a small piece of wood I thought I could use for the tires and  put it on the work bench to drill out the circles.   It took a while to drill out the first wheel, "man, this is hard wood." When I looked closer I realized it was a piece of wood I had saved from Andy's parents sofa.  So far, no real big deal I suppose but suddenly I flashed back to the first time I ever saw that furniture in the den of Jim and Bonnie Arnold in 1968.  It wasn't new then but I just thought of how long this wood has paralelled my life .  I remember one time  Bonnie gave  me 'a look' when I put a glass down on the end table with out a coaster or anything.  I got the message real quick!  Or Papa Jim,  asleep in his chair, snoring away with all kinds of noise, people and activity going on around him.  It only took a moment or two, going in rewind , to review several such snapshots:  I was the only Colts fan , watching the Super Bowl with a whole household of Joe Namath fans.....(especially Andy's mom.,    asking my future father in law for permission to marry Andy (I was sitting on the sofa but really squirming!.......Jim was gracious and said yes)  Enough.   I just flashed across the years and stopped  briefly , almost in a blur .  The really neat part was the brief visual of one of the gand kids picking up this little toy and banging it on the loudest thing available (as Ella is fond of doing )or worse yet pouring a whole cup of water on it or pushing it through the mud in the back yard (a noble thought for a Jeep)   "Sorry Jim and Bonnie!"

    I saw the look on Bonnie's face but this time, for a great grand child, it turned into a smile.

I just put this down to remember it;  I'll spend more time latter......must get back to the Jeep'

Tom

I reread the story that I posted this past weekend and I didn't even understand it.  I got lost trying to keep clear on exactly what was happening especially at the very end.  It was a story I started years ago and left unfinished but now it's back in the shop for more work .  I guess my main thought is that I discovered a new appreciation for writers in working on this little story.  It's hard.  

Maybe The Mysterious Mr. H  will be back, maybe not.  I need some help in correcting it.  SAMANTHA  if you're listening...........help

tom hudgens

Too Close to Home

I was watching a commercial on television the other day and found myself tearing up. Instantly, I snapped out of it and tried to critique the whole thing and figure out what had affected me like that. Obviously, I had personalized the situation and it touched an emotional hot button.
What does that mean? I could analyze everything and never learn anything about myself! The commercial was easy to figure out. It was a holiday dinner table with family sitting around it. I filled in the blanks with memories of my own childhood holidays . It is easy to see where the 'good tears' came from. (and the bad memories)
These same mental gymnastics happened to me as a firefighter in a more negative way many times. It is so easy to think about you own wife and kids when pulling up on the scene of a fire or automobile accident , or heart attack victim, etc. It was usually just a fleeting thing, over in an instant, because you don't really have time to dwell on it.

[I don't know how people experience this, especially firefighters and other public safety folks. I don't believe I have ever asked anyone so I'll do that now. Comment on this post and tell me if this has ever been something you have experienced.]

In a business like the fire service, you really need to develop the ability to disassociate, even repress, these thoughts and memories if your going to keep yourself from melt down. Of course you have to try to be objective, right? Then again, are their situations where identifying with victims the way we almost instinctively do, may help us do a better job? That is a factor always present in counseling, I know for sure. Even when you try to stay objective and professional, if you are a human, or at least an honest human, you have to be touched emotionally to really have empathy for your client, don't you? I mean, I'm asking, do you agree or disagree?

This is a real dilema for the helping professional. To just deny and repress the feelings one has to experience on emergency situations is a recipe for disaster, or at least burnout eventually. On the other hand, if you let yourself identify with every fire or accident victim and 'feel' for them, you are the one who will end up an emotional 'basket case'! I believe the best path is a balance of both ends of this continuum. Honest expression of the way you feel about some of calls you experience ( especially the bad ones) and a learned, professional , detachment from the scene which allows rational thinking. This is obviously not an exact science. Again, I'd be interested in the way others have experienced this and perhaps dealt with it. post

tom hudgens

The humble beginnings (Introduction)

Draft

I've always held to the idea that if you wanted to get anything done, especially the tough jobs, you should just get a bunch of firefighters together and stand back. They will get the job done! In doing so, there might be a slight chance that something could get broken or wet but that's a small price to pay. Besides, they would most likely stay around and dry the place out and probably fix what they broke! I've seen dog-tired firefighters, still on the scene of a house fire at two a.m., going the extra mile to reunite a child and his lost puppy, or find an elderly couple a place to spend the night , or simply making sure a scene is secure and safe before going back to their station. Speaking of the station; everyone knows that's the place to go if you are hurt or lost, or need shelter from the storm or to get your blood pressure taken, to name a few The funny thing is that most of the time the firefighters are falling all over themselves to be the one helping. The fire service puts together this interesting blend of people and gives them a rather simple (and impossible at times) mission:' Whatever happens today, Handle it!"

These are the folks I want these pages to focus on in both funny and serious ways. I'm sure there is no shortage of books and publications telling one part or another of this story and I say, more power to them. I haven't researched this but it appears that especially since 9-11, the fire service has received more and more good press. They deserve it, even though that was a tragic way to get it! My hope is that these stories will take a rather unique approach in several respects: Most of the stories are in a small town setting and not not New York City. Not that there is anything wrong with New York. I remember first reading "Report from Engine Co. 82" and being really impressed with the job those guys do, even to the point of emulating them. I suppose if there is a national stereotypical fire department it would be them. Funny though, when you're crawling into the middle of a house on fire, super-heated like hell itself and you sucking air and dragging hose, weighted down with BA and bunker- gear, half expecting to find a victim any minute, you probably are not asking yourself, now is this a big city fire or a small city fire! I know there are differences but , you get my point.

One other difference. I write from the perspective of a former firefighter, now retired. When I left the fire department I was one of the older guys . Okay, the oldest guy ) but now some of my cohorts that stayed are retiring with thirty plus years. I only had seventeen . The occupation I entered after the fire department may also influence my approach to this story. I spent another 17 years as a psychotherapist and psychology teacher. among other things. The teaching and counseling have offered me valuable experience for the task of understanding and developing personality profiles for the type of person who eagerly rushes into a burning building while everyone else is running out! I don't know, that is kind of strange! I went to graduate school while still with the fire department and I will admit, I had no shortage of subjects for practicing on and administering personality tests and the like. We had our share of dysfunctional people. In fact my shift may have actually put the 'fun' in dysfunctional but I really do not think we were significantly different from any number of other occupations. "Vellee Interesting"...... We may come back to this dellima.

The other difference in this book is that it will be a compilation of several different person's stories and not just my own. Over the years we discovered that whenever we get two or three firemen together the memories and stories just seem to flow. Hopefully that is what will happen as we pull together this book.
Enjoy!

Tom Hudgens

Hey Eddie and others.............this blog is not just fire department stories although it would be okay if it became one. As you can see it has other things as well. comment on todays post or just email your ideas if you want. tom.hudgens@gmail.com........see you all.

tom..'

Fire department stories:
I had a couple of thoughts about fire department stories and since I am having fewer and fewer ’thoughts’ I decided I better write them down.
First, we all know that we can sometimes be the world’s worse (all public safety) at ’dark humor’ . What I mean is that we laugh about something serious, probably because we’d rather do that then cry about it, or get depressed, or whatever. I’ve spent the past 18 plus years psychoanalyzing myself and others as a counselor but that isn’t my intent here. (unless someone else wants to do a little of that.) My intent is not to hurt or belittle anyone so , hopefully, no one will take offense. Also, it seems most of what I remember as funny pokes fun at all of us, myself included. I think there are enough stories to go around but it’s just like family; we can pole fun at each other but don’t like it when others do the same.
All that said, I also don’t mean to focus on ’screw ups’ in a way that some people believe make the fire service look bad. Goodness, I’ve never seen a bunch that spends more time going over and over its mistakes and trying to avoid them in the future! We rehearse possible scenarios and dissect everything to the nth degree, shave a second here, a mile there. That’s all good………….the experts say all of us ought to be making a fairly high (around 30%) error rate anyway. If not, we’re probably not risking enough new things and are not learning enough………
A ny way………….with that said, see if you send some ideas under the heading of, “ Selected Short Screw ups”. You might start the story with something like,” I remember the day we…………… and then just talk about I t. A couple of examples:
I remember one night Eddie White and I were on duty at the CFD . Dewey was off that night and I was driving Engine 8B while Eddie drove A. (Don’t remember where the squad was but since we had more equipment than men, we had to do some creative things with engine assignments. (if you remember, eddie, fill in the blanks)
An awful storm had just started; big time thunder and lightening, pouring down rain. We got a call that someone had seen smoke around JP Carr school. Eddie was off in his nice, dry, enclosed cab and I started across the bay to my ‘convertible’. About that time our city manager (was it Paul Boring) came walking in the station. I turned around to see who had come in and hit a slick spot, sliding for about 3 or 4 feet before totally losing my balance and falling on my butt, then my head as it bounced off the bay floor. Paul rushed to see if I was okay but I was up, a little dazed but still in the fight. Come to think of it, it would have been a good idea to give me a ‘ten-count‘ just to make sure I was okay. After hitting my shin on the running board and climbing into the driver‘s seat, I reported, Engine 1B enroute to …………. Whatever the address was. Before this was out of my mouth, I was soaked to the bone; I mean I couldn‘t see anything and my feet kept slipping off the clutch, or break, accelerator enough to make me swerve and learch and jerk my way out onto Scott street headed over to help Eddie.
You may be able to guess where this thing is going. I didn’t get half way over there before Eddie , very dry and composed, came on the radio to let me know that I could cancel because it looked like the wind was blowing water that someone mistook for smoke.
I , on the other hand, was afraid to pick up my microphone for fear of being electrocuted………..
Then there was the night that we tied Bob Cooley’s belt to his bed and called the hot line to get the buzzer to sound. Everyone was laughing so hard we couldn’t breath while Bob dragged the bed as far he could before being stuck in to bedroom door way, cussing and yelling at us……………
Or the night I slept through the alarms going off at least just enough so that I missed getting in the engine on the way to a call (alarm at a business on Green Street.. I wasn’t about to miss the call, though, so my solution was to jump in turn out gear and then drive my 74 VW bug and head out to the call. . Funny scene, Fire engines and vW bug arriving on the scene……..Herby the Fire Bug…….. probably needs a new title………..false alarm by the way………..
Then there is a whole collection of calls that involved ‘things stuck in things’……….I remember one or two; a twelve year old with his finger stuck in his dad rifle barrel; then the guy who got his finger stuck in the coin machine at the car wash (didn’t we take the entire machine off the wall and transport it or am I just dreaming………..there have to be more of these and I’m just giving an introduction. I’ll develop a story around a few facts if I have to by adding a few details to make it a story!
Many more: I’ll never forget David Almand running into a dresser mirror and seeing his own image in the smoke filled room. Scared him to death………………….or the ‘great Halloween caper of 1900 something, when some unidentified firefighters harassed the guys on duty at the station
Or the day D. Collins and I about dropped the fat lady we were trying to transfer from her bed to a stretcher…..what an awful, sinking feeling to watch her disappear between the beds…….
Or Kerry’s comments about Alan Abbott after he got his EMT training………..carried his huge first aide box everywhere. Kerry said Alan was so gung ho he would end up on the street, trying to resuscitate an armadillo if one got hit. He was right……….
The “I’m burning, I’m burning call on N. Hicks, whee we thought we were going on a fire call but instead had an elderly man who wasn’t quite sure what the problem was……
Anyway, you get the picture. Send me more,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,and maybe yours will broaden the types of stories as well.
See ya.
tom

hearing God

Please read this disclaimer: This happens to me sometimes; I just ramble until I find the nswers or go to sleep. You're welcome to join my search and send me back some of what you’ve found or ere on the side of ‘common’ sense and go on to the next few posts.
tom




I’m right in the middle of trying to organize my thoughts, the small number I have, and write down some ideas on what I believe about knowing and hearing from God. Can one know him on this planet- earth side of the Kingdom? Well, that is what I have been thinking about lately and on the face of it, I believe that ought to be a fairly straight forward question but it hasn’t turned out to be quite so easy. But I forgot, that isn’t what prompted me to write these thoughts down today.
In a conversation with three or four other people the other day, one man said that he felt a major problem in the church in our area was that the leaders were generally untrained and didn’t know enough theology. We didn’t pursue this conversation and so, I can’t be certain that I know where he was going with that statement however I do believe I can make a fairly good guess. Actually, I had a funny thought about this idea.
The whole church was started , taught and , expanded world wide by a bunch of fisherman, tax collectors and ne’er do wells who generally, except for Paul I suppose, had not gone to graduate school or seminary. [I can only hope someone hasn’t done research on this and can offer definitive evidence of the apostles academic accomplishments, not to mention dental records!] What a dignified group ! God, knowing this about them of course, ‘used them’ to expand the church by letting them be run out of practically every town they settled in. We all know this but it just came across as rather funny to me in thinking about it. God used this bunch to start a brand new church but we don’t have enough professional leaders? How did they accomplish what they did? What did they have that we don’t have? Perhaps a big, “ Well- Duh!” is in order.
The obvious and first thing I think of is the advantage of not having a clue. Add to that dependence upon Holy Spirit . Read Acts………notice how many times you see phrases like, after we had prayed and fasted we, or…………it seemed to us that we should……. And more……they didn’t sound like they had a preconceived plan and they obviously made some mistakes. Also note, that Jesus told them that they would be taught, nurtured, provoked, guided,…..etc by Holy Spirit when Had returned to the Father. Then there were the ministry gifts that were left for the building up of the body to make disciples of all nations . Teachers and preachers, and prophets……….etc. Not natural gifting but supernatural…..(that’s another article) I’m afraid we sometimes educate ourselves beyond our place of need and dependence upon God. Isn’t that really why the church is still here, to make disciples of all the nations or people-groups? I’m thinking of a business meeting I went to once, where around six or seven people were charged with the job of developing our company mission statement. Now to begin with half these people flew in from Colorado and points west, for the most part, just for this exercise. We spent the day in a futile attempt to reduce all our collective goals into a short paragraph! We generated lots of ideas on the subject, used up numerous markers and legal pads and cost, who knows how much money, but I think we confused the issue more than clarified it. If we were honest most of us would write as our personal view on the companies mission statement, to make money for the company and hold on to our job! Anyway, where did my point go?
We were talking about the church. It just occurred to me that maybe in our effort to not get our religion wrong, we miss out on opportunities to get it right. I mean, we can and do spend countless hours in maintaining just the correct view of man’s depravity, for instance. We write and rewrite , think, pray and ponder our views and doctrines on the subject until we don’t see anymore flaws in it, and with that, we disprove our premise, that man can’t get anything right! I’m only half joking! And don’t tell me, I n this last example , we got it right because we prayed and God helped us. That sounds good but I know how easy it is to give lip service to prayer and besides, a good number of our churches don’t actually believe God would speak clearly to us in answered prayer anyway. We end up making ourselves feel better by winning the doctrine wars that go on between churches At best, we can listen intently to our highly educated advisors and preachers, and do our best to hold on to what they say is truth. At worse, we slip into guarded, paranoid , and fearful behavior and read another self help or ‘correct’ doctrine book and hope we end up on the ’approved plan’………………. I know, I know,, we do a lot of good things in the in between times and God uses ministries despite themselves but please…………….. In the words of one of my former pastor/friends, ’ I’m more fouled up than Hogan’s goat so I don’t claim to have all our solutions…………or wait, maybe I do.
Why don’t we just stop and ask God, and expect that He will answer, since he said, over and over again than he would. In that, some of us will have to try real hard to stiffle our religious spirit…..You’re the ones who are already correcting me when I capitalized the word He ; pronoun for God, even though I left it uncapitalized in the second sentence ! You might win the battle but lose the war if that is your usual approach to prayer! Just humor us ______________, well, I’m not sure what I am today…….I’ll just call myself a sometimes emerging ‘Babacosterianist’ and leave it at that.
Try reading the Bible for a week or two as much as you have a chance, especially in the ‘red letters’ but not just there. Anyway ask Holy Spirit to help you hear and obey and write down what God may be saying to you. I know, if you let yourself you can stop here and instantly get out your doctrine gun and beat me up. Don’t get me wrong,,,,,,,,,,,I agree we are to guard our doctrines but if you continue to ‘monitor yourself’ ‘ and seek first your familiar doctrine, you can see you will hardly ever actually go first person with God. At least that’s been my experience and remember ‘Hogan’s goat! I believe you’d be on pretty solid ground to accept in faith that God may just answer your prayer. As we grow and mature , some of us do find that our prayers don’t obligate God or require Him to answer in our way. That’s a given. And we don’t require or demand anything from God ….we got that. And we know we don’t have God’s perfect timing in answering our prayers. Knowing this is liberating though, we just lay back, breath deeply (the pneuma / the Spirit of God and that is where our preparation for doing the works come from………………
More later,
tom

The Word

I sat down this morning to have a quiet time in the Word before starting other projects, something I haven’t been doing recently. First I struggled with trying to get comfortable in the chair I was in, and then the lighting over the table. My eyes were blinking and watering so bad it slowed down my reading even more than then the ‘snails-pace’ it has already gotten to due to Parkinson’s disease. I think you get the picture. In five or six minutes time it was obvious I couldn’t get into the reading and I kept losing focus both with my eyes and my brain. I decided to get up and move around instead of just sit there in misery and as soon as I did, Bible verses started coming into my memory. The Holy Spirit gave me scripture that applied perfectly with what I was trying to express on paper and these verses encouraged me to share with you what I was hearing from God.
Put the Word of God into your heart and mind and spirit, so that Holy Spirit can draw upon it and speak to you with it. Now that I can’t see as well as I used to it’s even more important that I have some of the Word in my heart. For instance, start reading in Psalm 119, almost anywhere but I was thinking of 11-16, ( can’t leave out vs. 18, 23b, 24, 27b …………….just keep reading and looking for references)…..It reminded me of the novel ‘Fahrenheit 454’, where the books had all been destroyed/ burned and the small group of escapees were memorizing different books for posterity. That’s kind of a neat challenge, though. If your Bible was taken away, how much of it would you remember? Even more telling; If the Holy Spirit left your body of believers, how long would it be or how many people would notice his absence?
Just a thought…………what’s yours?
tom

Fire Department Stories

There is one writing project I have been wanting to start for years now but without success. I have thought about getting down some of the funny stories and perhaps serious too, of the fire department days. We have gotten only so far and just fizzeled out. My daughter suggested inviting some of our old fire fighters over and just allow conversations to start while they tape recorded the whole thing That is probably not a bad idea because my memory would only account for a tiny percentage of the calls we all answered . I say calls but , of course, we are not limited to calls. I'm thinking of numerous funny stories around the station as well.

The only problem with the get together is that it seems to never happen so I'm just throwing out this email to invite others to send in details and ideas they may remember from their experience. I left the FD in 91, so most of my old friends stayed for many years longer than I did (some still at it now). My experience was only with the now Defunct Conyers Fire Department but my thinking is to certainly not limit it to Conyers or even Rockdale, for that matter. Good stories; funny, inspiring, factual and not so factual all have possibilities. Here are some other things I thought about in compiling information:

It will not need to be an accurate history book...............guess at dates or no date at all

I don't really intend to use full names of people as much as first names and or made up names.

No axe to griind. I have been putting thing s on a blog just to save ideas and as a place to organize them. I've written some about the old 'osterich' underground newspaper, for instance, without any current anger or agenda. No thoughts of stiring up anything with the current department. It seems they are doing that well enough on their own.

I'm sixty years old now and have worked in a number of different environments in all kinds of settings as varied as a college classroom, bar, probation office and church but I've never experienced one to compare with the fire service. It is something special, a place where you have opportunity for a real brotherhood (used inclusive of women), excitement and fun, along with all the work. I'd like to capture some of the flavor of the service , especially in our experience of a smaller department and most likely in the humor .

Just a thought.......If you are interested send me some stuff.

tom hudgens

Old Friends

The cruelness of Life
which lets old friends drift apart;
never to be together again.

The voices of old friends which
once shared straines of music
and blended in conversation.

Now they are filled with excuses
and insincerity- with nothing in
common, they choose not to speak-

Now they would rather that
each and the other go away
to whatever it was they were doing

before the cruelness of life
brought them together and
forced them to meet as old friends.

Tommy Hudgens, 1972

Two Short Thoughts

Memories

Without memories all of us would be seasonal creatures,
with so many dreams that have yet to become reality and
far too many realities which could have been left for dreaming.

Would you believe I see June
in that cold January rain?
Remember the rain in June
and the house we called our own?



Ode to a contented husband
(or the happy and speechless poet)

Why is it uninspiring to be happy?
Does a contented mind always have to be so dull?
Was it so much better in my misery
when my greatest pleasure was to sulk.

Tom Hudgens

Queen's Gambit Declined

Queens Gambit Declined

To King's rook three the Bishop went
one sunny day in May-
and on the run, armed with a gun
the Queen stopped by to say;

The empire sir, I fear we've lost,
our troops arrived too late-
At Queen's Knight six, we took our licks,
if I may firmly state.

Dear man, said she, with honesty and
more than solomn face,
I have a plan to save us both
and never leave a trace.

And what , my Queen, the Bishop said,
is in your gracious mind;
what kind of plan, to call your hand,
can free us from this bind?

I'll leave tonight to Castle's square
and there secure a boat;
You stay around and if your found
just hand them this small note-

In my own hand as plainly seen,
I offer them a bribe,
the booty waits, the letter states,
in the office of my scribe;

and as for you, most noble sir
I ask they set you free,
we'll meet at four on yonder shore
then both of us will flee-

I like your scheme, your on the beam
the Bishop slowly said,
but if I fail, I'll sure be flailed-
the King will have my head.........................

The king, my liege, has run away

as if he saw a ghost!

He drained the bank then stole a tank

and headed for the coast.

His bearings lost, his crown was tossed,

the cliff he met in death.

The Queen and Bishop made their way,

with only pause for breath.

tom hudgens and David Rhodes

more old poems

I keep finding more of these poems from years ago. Let me know if you like any of them.



Spiritual Divorce (actually written in the late 80's I believe)

Scratch my back--
don't give me no Flac,
said she to he
who silently
was dreaming dreams of sailing ships
and sun-kist seas
and freedom's song
came roaring in like a
freight train!

tom hudgens


OLD Friends

The cruelness of life
which lets old friends drift apart;
never to be merged again.

The voices of old friends which
once shared straines of music
and blended in conversation;

Now they are filled with excuses and insincerity-
with nothing in common they
choose not to speak.

Now they would rather that
each and the other go away
to whatever it was they were doing

before the cruelness of life
brought them back together, and
forced them to meet as old friends

Tom Hudgens Jan., 72


Another attempt to be sarcastic about some of my cohorts in college who were trying to 'look the part' of anti war, protester, anti, anti........

Title: Combination ruthless, killer-of-man, healthy animal, green beret, jungle jim, hippy and cool-head and guaranteed intellectual outfit.

"I feel like nothing can stop me now with all my new cloths,
I'm just so damned charming and smart that I know,
I can solve all our problems and
get us all straight-
O man that's a word that I really do hate."

Back soon with more.
Tom Hudgens

Advice to Counselors

I think this is such good advice for all of us, not just counselors. Words of a seventeenth century French theologian named Fenelon.

Speak little; listen much; think far more of understanding hearts and of adapting yourself to their needs than of saying clever things to them. Show that you have an open mind and let everyone see by experience that there is safety and consolation in opening his mind to you. Avoid extreme severity, and reprove, where necessary, with caution and gentleness. Never say more than is needed, but let whatever you say be said with entire frankness. Let no one fear to be deceived by trusting you.........you should become all things to all the children of God, for the sake of gaining every one of them. And correct yourself for the sake of correcting others.
Fenelon

see ya/ tom hudgens

The Creeping Crawling Ivy by Day

I remember these lines. I was sitting on the front steps of the building where I had most of my business classes in that quarter .It was a nice place to sit, right on the quad , big shade trees, no place to go for a while. I was just sitting there listening to tiny little pieces of conversations as people walked by, writing them down as fast as I could before another one started. The creeping, crawling ivy by day

Sitting on the front steps- but I was there
in spirit not in mind-- and these
problems would be solved-
If he would only ask me out,
and, after all, she wouldn't go
so why ask?
Let's shake away the leaves
and get some sun- That girl's
sure tough and I'm not blind,
when my wife's not around.

'Star Spangled Girl plays in
three days- I think I'll go,
but no I can't- I saw it once
and someone said it sure
was bad, but who can tell.
Got a test on Monday, mine's
on Friday- then the one
on Thursday, not to mention
Wednesday; why I'm here I'll
never know.

Think I'll leave this drag on Friday,
there's nothing to do but
I'm going to have a ball this weekend;
wonder why everyone goes home?

You had this teach before--
I sure have and he's real coolk
but if he is so groovy and interesting
why don't we cut and get a beer
at John's Place?

Tom Hudgens, 1970

old Poems

It really is humerous reading some of the old poems I wrote in the late sixties and early seventies. I think it was just assumed that if you were a college student in the sixties and tried to write poems, there should be a good number of them that were political protest. I hope I don't offend anyone but I am just writing down what i wrote then. Of course not all are protest poems either.
tom


12
The Sales Meeting
I gaze into the room with unbeceeching, vacant eyes,
Searching for nothing; hoping to find no one
Looking back at me-
This is the game , I say, of the uncommitted,
Unthinking, unbeautiful, un- un
Important people
Fatally, framing the mold for the rest
Of their days.


13
Ode to the Vending Machines (Lithonia Lighting, 1973)
Alas, uncola’s song still sings
Amid the disaray,
Where once there stood an army
Of machines that took our pay.
It sings of rows of handles
In a gleaming charactry;
When kicked with loving kindness
All their treasures they would free.
A tale is told of Hersey and of
Strudel soft and light
And of their evanescent reign
Before they both gave up the fight.
Sing on candy corner chorus-
Sing your dirge from wall to wall,
And return ye, vended spirit
To the factory recall.
What’s left in life when dawn’s
First light reveals an erie scene,
Of cancroid shells and Dixie cups
And vapid coffee beans.
Yes uncola’s song still sings
Somewhere beyond those hills,
And we, in homage, come to work
With change instead of bills.
tom (in protest of the vending machines at Lithonia)

Metro, Public, Suburb, Wall Street Blues.
I think I’m missing some of this one, so I’ll come back and add to it if I find another sheet.

Blast the trumpet
Clear and cold
Les’t we die
Before we’re old-
Lease your wisdom
Bought and sold,
Watch dark corners,
Don’t get rolled-
Birth-Death-Nothingness.

Technobeaurohypocrite
Rule the world
And all get fat,
In the church
the pious sat
Sticky fingers
Pass the hat-
Birth-Death-Nothingness.

Car, truck,
loco plane
Modern travel
Damn, wrong lane;
Stocks are up
And what a gain
People laugh,
The’re all insane-\

Birth-Death-Nothingness,
Birth-Nothingness,
Death-Nothingness-
Nothingness……….
tom h.

Untitled (written in 1971 when we (Andy,Sam and I) lived in Nashville)

I'm basically liberal
but more important, anti conservative.
I never met a politician I trusted,
but more important, I feel that the
government is too important to be
left with the law makers.
I am under 25 and never
plan to grow up, and
what's more I don't
like old people.
I love dirt and grime and always
wear sloopy clothes, better yet,
I hate with a passion those pigs
who pollute our air.
I try to fill my mind with
intellectual thoughts and
I'm even a college drop out-
Can I join your groovy, cool person club?
tom hudgens

More added to "Echos post'

I revisited the earlier post echos........................just so you don't skip it.
tom

More Early Poems

I think I posted one love poem but I really had several that I am finding now. I know that more free verse and style is popular now and most of mine sound rather old but as I said before, it was the emotion of love for Andy that opened me up . When it did out came these poems!

What more but her Love

What can I do when I'm so much in love
that to all the world's riches I place her above-
How can I live when the sound of her name
is music I treasure above Hayden's fame
and where in a painting of splendor untold
can one mortal artist her beauty unfold.
Why should the poet, in vain, try to write
a poem that in beauty means more than her sight-
When can I sleep and have peace with my mind
when I know that another like her I won't find-
and how can I ponder my fate as a man
when all of my future is held in her hand.
Tom Hudgens 11-25-68

[these are really bad but the emotion was and is real]

If at first you don't succeed

I can love you, if you let me
and I'll try to make you love me two-
I can make the world much better
if that world is for we two.
I can make your life much brighter
if our love can be the sun.
I can give you joy forever
if , forever, I'm with you
I can also write my poems
til my pencil lead is gone
but if I still can not convince you
guess I will have to try again.
tom Hudgens, 1968

Words of Love

The words of love seem short and simple
when there's no one there to hear,
yet to say them, and to mean them
brings a strangeness close to fear.

To say, "I love you" makes me wonder
what this spell is all about-
but this seems my heart's own business
so the thought to think is out!

tom hudgens, 1968


What is Love

Love is a hidden treasure
with no map for reference-
Love is life's greatest mystery
which no one seems to question-
Love is constant uncertainty
without which no one seems certain-
Love is unending sacrifice
for nothing but love in return-
Love is a sleepless slumber
with one and only one dream-
Love is man's only necessity
his life, his purpose, his breath.
tom hudgens, 1968

"I have known love, and tried to crystallize its essence
into forms of line and ink,
and searched my soul,, but found emotions
that would rather feel than think." Tom Hudgens


Well, that's just a sample of them; more later. I move from moody love poems to dark, depressed, O woe is me poems next, if I can stand it. it didn't help much that I was either listening to 'Knights in White Satin or 'dock of the bay, while I wrote